The Trylon and Perisphere were the two main structures of the New York World's Fair of 1939-1940. Inside the Perisphere was a diorama called "Democracity" that represented a utopian city-of-the-future. Just like the folks in 1939 envisioned their idea of utopia, so too does this blog author. I envision a world where human rights and the Constitution are revered as much as we revere money and power today... Source: Image courtesy World's Fair Historical Society

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

For anyone wondering why the establishment media is held in such low regard one need look no further for evidence than this video of today's Morning Joe program. Pathetic is the best word I can use to describe the entire conversation that occurred. The entire video is full of distortions, CYA comments and some just outright lies. I was so angered after watching this disgraceful display that I felt I needed to make this post in order to do my part in holding our media accountable for telling us the truth, not the kind of garbage we saw this morning.

Have these people even bothered to read any of the government documents about our treatment of our prisoners? It's mind boggling to me that people in our media can actually sit around and make comments that what was done to our prisoners was no different than what we do to our own military. That is just factually false. Is this willful ignorance or are these people so delusional that they actually believe this ? Or maybe it's just that lying is the only way for them to convince the public that there should be no accountability for this outrageous program?

This video is such a clear example of what our establishment media has been pushing from day 1

NO PROSECUTIONS - even if we find out that the evidence reveals that crimes were committed or in the case of Meacham, a call for no prosecutions before the investigation is even started.

Meacham: I don't think we should be prosecuting people, uh, but I do think we should be finding out exactly what happened and why.

Scarborough: It would be very difficult if we started prosecuting people because you couldn't stop with the lawyers it would have to go to Dick Cheney & Condoleeza Rice & Don Rumsfeld & George W. Bush - all the people around the table. As Donnie said that is the last thing this president wants for this own political reasons.

Meacham: I completely agree with that. I think that you have to go to the top responsible officer and everyone likes to talk about VP Cheney in this context, and they should, he was a critical player but we had a president, we had I think a president who history will show was much more hands on than we think and so you would have to somehow or another figure out how to hold a president culpable in his official role which has been a very complicated thing in our Constitutional history. You mentioned the Nixon example which is the best, I think. And I think you're right in that a criminal prosecution takes us to a very different place then we've been in the past...at the same time I would love to see a terrific senator or congressman doing a 911 commission kind of thing.

So Meacham, in typical beltway establishment fashion, evidently holds the view that we shouldn't prosecute the unethical lawyers who wrote memos to provide legal cover for this illegal torture program because then we'd have to go after ALL the high-level officials responsible and we can't do that because that's too "complicated." Evidently prosecuting those few lower level "bad apples" that we've already prosecuted will just have to be good enough.

Scarborough: I hear from some agencies that 100 people died while in captivity in these type of prisons I don't know whether that's the truth or not I would like to know though - I think you're exactly right that we have these investigations - we clear the air but we need to be focused and rational about it and not emotional.

Think about this conversation...Scarborough brings up that he's heard that 100 people died who were in our care....He then says we need investigations but we must be focused and rational about it and not emotional...Meacham says we don't know exactly what happened but he nods in agreement when Deutsch says we shouldn't prosecute.

I wonder how anyone can hear that there might have been 100 prisoners that died while in our custody, agree we should investigate but without knowing what evidence that investigation shows agree in advance that there should be no prosecutions. What kind of twisted mind does it take to agree with such thinking?

These people in this discussion have all been on the wrong side of this issue and they know it. They're desperately trying to grab at anything that will prevent them from having to admit that they were wrong like you see in this disgusting comment by Deutsch.

Deutsch: John don't we all know what happened? And you set it up best - on Sept 10th we were one country on Sept 12th we were a different country and we all know that if you said to everybody in this country OK, if by waterboarding one terrorist you could save your brother would you do it? We all know the answer to that and that was the tenor of this country so without an investigation and Joe help me out here or disagree with me, don't we all kinda know that we walked into that grey emotional and legal area and obviously these are things that people are taught in U.S. military training techniques so there is a precedent there, so don't we kind of know what went down?

How presumptuous of you Mr. Deutsch to pretend to speak for everyone in this country. Quite frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. There were and still are a lot of people in this country who would never agree to waterboard anyone and even if everyone in this country said "yes" to your self-serving hypothetical, it's up to our leaders to resist the passions of the mob and follow the law. What you've outlined in your scenario isn't a legitimate reason for breaking the law and you should be ashamed of yourself for even insinuating that it is.

After defending the torture program these guys finally get around to defending their own culpability. All of these men have been on the wrong side of this issue for years. They've ridiculed the rest of us who have been advocating for accountability for torture. But now when they finally see the accountability freight train coming directly at them these guys cynically try to minimize their own role in allowing the torture program to go unchallenged by saying that everyone was at fault (not just them). No, everyone was not at fault. And no, everyone didn't have a different mindset about the rule of law on Sept. 12. Maybe you guys did, but a lot of us didn't and YOU KNOW IT.

Scarborough: The important thing though is John, as with the economic crisis, we love blaming Wall street, we love blaming Washington. We need to blame ourselves also. I remember, you know, I am a conservative/libertarian, I want small government . I remember on Sept 12th turning to my wife and saying - you know I love small government, I don't trust federal authority but I'll tell you what we need to do, whatever we have (you can hear Deutsch saying...exactly exactly at this point) to do to make sure it never happens again and I'll be damned if 300 million Americans didn't say the same thing at the same time, so lets not be self righteous now 8years (Another Deutsch "exactly" heard in the background) later when we think that the skies over New York are safe.

Meacham is nodding in agreement during this whole self-serving comment by Scarborough.

Meachum then (mis) quotes Arthur Schlesinger in order to try to cover up his own incompetence on this issue now that he sees that it's not going to be ignored, as he and his fellow establishment clowns have been advocating.

Meacham knows that a lot of us were saying the same things then as we are now so his "cheap" shot about self-righteousness is nothing more than a self-serving comment designed to deflect attention away from the fact that he's been wrong about this issue all along.

Perhaps he should have used this Schlesinger quote instead because it certainly describes Scarborough, Meacham, Deutsch and other establishment media personalities, both then and now.

2 comments:

I agree wholeheartedly. I watch MJ because I like hearing from the guests. I always liked Jon Meacham, but was thoroughly disgusted during this segment. I was yelling at the TV "not me" when they had the gall to speak for me. Scarborough has become nothing but a hack and his guests have become parrots. Whenever anyone disagrees with Scarborough, he attacks them personally. Now, he makes sure sycophants are booked- no dissention. He's Hannity-lite.

I'm like you, I always watched to hear the guests but it's gotten really bad lately. In addition to having to watch Scarborough browbeat Mika the Mouse, he's had on nothing but sycophants, as you so accurately observe.

This video of Meacham and co. really grossed me out because it was just so darned creepy. You could hear Deutsch in the background saying exactly, exactly...no prosecutions and then watch Meacham nodding his head. It really made my skin crawl.

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About Me

I've been politically active for years but during the Bush years I increased my activism enormously.
I'm writing the Democracity blog because I think that it's our responsibility as citizens to hold our leaders accountable using any method we can find. I'm not a gifted writer but I think I write well enough for anyone reading my posts to understand the point I'm trying to make. And hopefully, whenever I make grammatical errors my readers will look beyond them.